Remember when your manual was just as thick as the box it came in? This mainly applied to RPG games, but they were still neccescary to even get a game to run back in the good ol days. These were lovingly created and wrapped up and put into the box. With the price of the game, it probably tacked on 10% of the price.
Other then being used for copywrite purposes (line 8 - pg 123 word 4, type it in or your game will explode and teh fuzz will be on yo door dawg), a manual can be used for a multitude of real life interaction with your game. An exaple could be hidden passwords for doors or cryptic clues, UV lights come with your game to find the evidence. I dunno, how bout a random picture in the credits page thats the face of the killer, and your like lol WUT.
The only manual a game has came with in recent memory that had some effort put into it was Grand Theft auto - San andreas, while totally useless in its own write, presenting it as a brouchur was a neat idea (forgive me if they had done this for previous GTA games, i never played them, except for the original 2d versions).
Note - This is a 2 parter with Death of the non casual game. thingy. Let me know what you think in comments.
